Party leaders are quietly negotiating how to bypass a conservative blockade and bring Speaker Mike Johnson’s four-part foreign aid package to the House floor, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

Three Republicans on the powerful Rules Committee — Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — are threatening to vote against the so-called rule as the panel meets Thursday, which would block the package before it reached the House floor if all Democrats also opposed it. Typically, the majority party is responsible for clearing the Rules Committee without help from the minority.

The panel took a break after they finished hearing from witnesses earlier in the afternoon, and members have been delayed as cross-party negotiations continue, according to the four people familiar with the conversations.

In exchange for helping circumvent the conservatives, Democrats are hoping they’ll be able to extract concessions from the other side of the aisle and are actively talking with Republicans, according to those people. But it’s not clear what, if anything, Johnson would give them for helping bring the bills to the floor. Democrats have called on him to bring Ukraine aid, in particular, to the floor for months.

“I think Democrats will act in a manner that’s incredibly united once we see the rule and see what it says,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.), who sits on the Rules committee, told POLITICO Thursday when the meeting recessed.

She wouldn’t comment directly on whether Democrats have heard from Johnson, but added, “I hear that [Johnson] has put a lot of time and thinking into this.”

One potential item that’s off the table: changes to the process on forcing a vote to oust a speaker. Johnson said Thursday in a post on X that he doesn’t plan to endorse any changes to the GOP’s current rules governing the so-called motion to vacate, which can currently be triggered by just one member. Some conservatives had confronted Johnson Thursday, amid rumors that he might try to include a change to that threshold in the rule for the foreign aid package.

Rep. Jake LaTurner (R-Kan.) announced Thursday he’ll finish his current term in the House but won’t run for reelection this fall.

“The busy schedule of serving in and running for Congress has taken a toll,” he said in a statement. “The unrepeatable season of life we are in, where our kids are still young and at home, is something I want to be more present for.”

He called the current congressional dysfunction “distressing” but added “the vast majority of people I have served with are good and trying to do the right thing.” He got to Congress in 2021 after toppling scandal-plagued former Rep. Steve Watkins (R-Kan.)

Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus are signing up to take shifts to monitor the chamber floor in order to prevent their own party leaders from making unilateral moves that could curb their power.

The Freedom Caucus’ Floor Action Response Team, shorthanded as “FART,” aims to guard against an unannounced request to pass resolutions that would stealthily limit their leverage against leadership, according to two Republicans with direct knowledge, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly.

While one of the Republicans said the group largely doesn’t expect major developments, members also don’t want to be caught flat-footed if a GOP colleague tried to seek unanimous consent or a voice vote for a resolution that would change the House’s structure. Two potential examples of threats the Freedom Caucus perceives: the removal of its members from the Rules Committee or changes to agreements made at the beginning of this Congress with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

It’s a troubling sign for Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s trying to pass a foreign aid package that deeply divides his conference amid a growing ouster threat from his right. While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spearheads that push to boot him, a greater number of rank-and-file House Republicans are calling for changes to the concessions McCarthy gave conservatives in order to win the gavel last year.

The huge amount of intraparty power the former speaker had to give to the right flank is making it nearly impossible for Johnson to govern with his tiny majority, in the eyes of those Republicans.

During a Wednesday meeting with the speaker and the Republican Main Street group, members of that more establishment-minded bloc pitched Johnson on two changes, according to two other Republicans familiar with the matter. The first would remove Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) from the Rules panel — ending an effective conservative stranglehold on the pivotal panel that preps bills for floor debate.

“There were a number of members who told him that he should not allow malcontents to serve on the Rules Committee,” Main Street Chair Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) told POLITICO afterwards.

The second proposed change by Main Street members was to raise the threshold required for majority-party members to force a vote on ousting a speaker from its current number of one. Members of that group argued that McCarthy’s offers to the right — giveaways that ultimately helped end his term as speaker — are handcuffing Johnson.

Notably, Main Street members did not specifically propose that Johnson make those changes as part of debate on the foreign aid bill — but just urged to move as quickly as possible. Even so, the very idea infuriated conservatives, who vowed it would backfire if Johnson pursued them.

“Talking about changing the threshold to the motion to vacate [the speakership] is likely to induce the motion to vacate,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

Gaetz, who is not a Freedom Caucus member, later joined several members of the group in a heated floor exchange with the speaker, during which the Floridian said “we did not get the answer that we wanted” about the changes Johnson might entertain.

Greene put it more bluntly: “Mike Johnson owes our entire conference a meeting. And if he wants to change the motion to vacate he needs to come before the Republican Conference that elected him and tell us of his intentions and tell us what this rule change … is going to be.”

Johnson demurred when asked twice on Thursday whether he was entertaining changes to the threshold of members required to force a vote on firing a speaker.

“I haven’t made any decisions on that,” he told reporters, adding that “I’ve been focused on the substance of the [foreign aid] bill itself.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The Senate advanced a controversial surveillance bill on Thursday afternoon by a 67-32 vote, as leaders race to fight off attempts to change it that could result in a lapse over the weekend.

The vote to break a filibuster on a law extending and reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s section 702 authority sets up a crucial showdown before the Saturday expiration of the program. Critics of the authority, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, want major changes designed at making it much tougher to access American information that is swept up in the program. They also want to strike House language updating which data providers’ information could be used in the program.

Due to Senate procedure, the spy powers law will expire on Saturday without agreement from all 100 senators to vote more quickly. That in mind, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell must craft a deal that sets parameters on amendment votes and debate time in order to pass the legislation before the deadline.

And changing the two-year extension at this late stage would require the House to vote again on it before Saturday, an arduous exercise that could result in a lapse due to the tight timetable. If the Senate changes the bill, “we run the real risk of FISA expiring,” said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee.

The fight over surveillance is creating unusual bipartisan coalitions and is likely to lead to a series of challenging Senate votes. Libertarian-leaning lawmakers in both parties want significant alterations — mainly centered on the data provider issue and more warrant requirements when the intelligence community accesses American information — while backers of the intelligence community are warning their colleagues not to play around with the bill with such little time to spare.

Senators in both parties are making a last-minute push to strip out an amendment from the House that would make changes to the law over which data providers must comply with the FISA program. In an interview, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said there’s been no debate about the provision within the Intelligence Committee.

“It was snuck in at the last moment and it’s a massive increase in the number of people that could be forced by the government to be spied on,” Wyden said.

Wyden and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said they would insist on a vote to cut that language before moving forward. Both expressed concern that the amendment text is too opaque; Hawley said “it needs to be stripped out.”

Neither said they want the program to shut down over the weekend but would demand that the Senate vote on their amendment before moving forward. Rubio and Senate Intelligence Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said they supported keeping the House language, a sign the amendment may struggle to pass.

The Biden administration is spending the week reassuring senators that the bill would not expand the scope of who can be targeted. Biden officials briefed senators on Wednesday and Thursday about the change and reiterated that point, according to a person familiar with meetings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland also wrote to Senate leaders with an explanation of the change. He called it “narrowly tailored” and included an attached explanation asserting it would be unlawful to use the new definition of “electronic communication service provider” to target businesses or private entities.

“It’s really a technical change, but it’s really quite important,” Rubio said. “As people become informed on it, I think a lot of the opposition will melt away.”

Wyden dismissed that explanation, but there are issues beyond that. Other senators argue the bill’s incidental collection of Americans’ information should be much harder for the government to access. Opponents of the legislation want votes on amendments that would require a warrant for that information and another that would prohibit the collection of it altogether.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he’d like a vote on the warrant requirement, a sign of the unusual coalitions when it comes to government surveillance programs.

Senators also disagree on what it would even mean if the program expires, especially after a court granted an extension of the surveillance powers into 2025. Warner and Rubio say that companies may cooperate less with the FISA program if there’s an expiration of the law, though Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) calls that argument “scaremongering.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle aired outrage Thursday after a POLITICO report that the Chinese embassy lobbied members of Congress on legislation that would force the sale of TikTok by its Beijing-based parent company.

“These reports are no surprise. The Chinese Communist Party has a vested interest in keeping TikTok under its current ownership structure in the United States so it can influence and spy on Americans,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), outgoing chair of the House’s select China panel, said in a statement to POLITICO. “The more the CCP digs in to retain control of the platform, the more it demonstrates exactly why we must divest TikTok from the CCP.”

He’s not alone among senior House committee members.

“I don’t like foreign governments, especially adversaries, interfering with our democratic process, but they do,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

“TikTok has no connection with China, I thought, so why would they do that?” quipped Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), a member of the China panel.

“It’s so patently obvious that TikTok is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” he added, “that if it takes the fact that the Chinese Embassy is taking meetings on Hill to convince you of that — you may have been too far gone.”

The lobbying push will backfire, Auchincloss predicted, and the legislation will pass.

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), incoming chair of the China panel following Gallagher’s slated exit from Congress this week, said the report “definitely shows that the CCP is very influential on this issue and very active and illustrates the importance of why we need to separate TikTok’s operations here in the United States.”

McCaul’s counterpart urged China to butt out of congressional consideration of the legislation, which passed the House on a bipartisan basis in March. A modified version that Speaker Mike Johnson added to his pending foreign aid package earned the support of Commerce Committee Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) on Wednesday, taking a major holdout off the board.

“China is watching and China has been a part of helping Russia with their invasion of Ukraine,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), his party’s top member on the Foreign Affairs Committee. “China should stay out of this — period.”

Across the Capitol, leading Democrats were also incensed by the report.

“I’ve warned time and time again that companies in China are beholden — by law — to the Chinese Communist Party. At this point, it comes as no surprise that Xi Jinping is heavily invested in preventing a TikTok divestiture, which would put American data and TikTok’s potential for malign influence out of the hands of the CCP,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Intelligence Committee.

TikTok said in a statement that the embassy’s Hill meetings were “news to us.” The Chinese Embassy, however, did not deny having held them. In a statement, embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that the “Chinese Embassy in the US tries to tell the truth about the TikTok issue to people from all walks of life in the US.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded to the POLITICO report with his analysis of why the Chinese government would launch the lobbying push: “Because it risks losing a powerful surveillance capability on unsuspecting Americans and a powerful tool for disinformation and propaganda to advance its interests.”

Katherine Tully-McManus and Rebecca Kern contributed to this report.

House Democrats have adopted a wait-and-see posture on Speaker Mike Johnson’s four-part foreign aid package as it faces a key procedural Rules Committee roadblock.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries‘ message to the morning caucus meeting: Stay united and frosty on the foreign aid package. He gave no marching orders on exactly what that would require from Democrats. Their votes will almost certainly be needed to get it over the finish line.

He also made the case to lawmakers that its components were essentially the same as the Senate-passed foreign aid bill, according to multiple people in the room. And the caucus applauded when they were told the fourth part of the package, including a bill potentially restricting TikTok and beefing up sanctions on Iran, was free of border provisions.

Democratic leadership also told the room that they urged Republicans to vote more quickly on the legislation and waive the 72-hour-rule, which they said Republicans are adamant about sticking to in this case.

And needing help from Democrats has not stopped some House GOP leaders from lambasting the minority party in the foreign aid debate.

As House Republicans kicked off a committee meeting Thursday morning to tee up floor action on the four bills, the chair of the Rules Committee railed on President Joe Biden for “shattering” both national and global security, by trying to appease “his radical base.”

Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan are “in these dangerous situations — not in spite of President Biden’s leadership, but because of it,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas).

Burgess could need votes from Democrats to even move the legislation beyond his committee, considering conservative Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina all oppose the foreign aid bills. If the three combine with Democrats to vote against the bills, the package won’t make it to the House floor.

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the panel’s top Democrat, said it’s “beyond the pale” that top House Republicans are blaming Biden while GOP lawmakers threaten to unseat their speaker for moving to pass the foreign aid measures. Especially, he added, since it’s been more than nine weeks since the Senate overwhelming passed the bipartisan $95 billion assistance package in February.

“And meanwhile the world has been watching, and our allies have been waiting — and waiting and waiting — for the GOP to get their act together,” McGovern said. “Well guess what? Our allies are out of time. And the Republican Party is out of excuses.”

House lawmakers have descended into the congressional equivalent of a troll war as tensions escalate over foreign aid, proposing multiple absurd amendments to a pending package.

The effort seems to mainly originate with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who adamantly opposes further aid to Ukraine and is currently threatening to force a vote to strip Speaker Mike Johnson of the House gavel.

She offered multiple amendments, including one to the Israel aid bill that would fund “space laser technology on the southern border.” For those who don’t recall, the Georgia GOP firebrand has been widely mocked for backing a conspiracy theory that Jewish space lasers were used to start California wildfires. She also proposed funding an Iron Dome, the defense system used by Israel, on the southern border of the U.S.

Additionally, Greene floated a measure that would require any House lawmaker voting for the Ukraine funding to “conscript in the Ukrainian military.” And she proposed redirecting the proposed Ukraine cash to victims of last year’s Maui wildfires, the East Palestine train disaster and to deport undocumented migrants.

She also submitted an amendment that would bar any funding until Ukraine bans abortion and turns over all information related to Hunter Biden. Another proposal from her would offset the cost with the salaries of Congress lawmakers who support it.

Her collective efforts prompted a clapback from Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) who floated renaming Greene’s House office the “Neville Chamberlain Room,” after the former U.K. prime minister best known for his policy of appeasement to Adolf Hitler.

The Florida Democrat also proposed an amendment that Greene be named “Vladimir Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Of course, none of those measures have much of a chance at actually getting attached to the foreign aid package, as the Rules Committee considers the bills later Thursday. The back and forth is just a further sign of growing animosity in the House, specifically towards Greene as she threatens to throw the chamber back into speaker-less chaos.

The House Rules Committee recessed late Wednesday without passing a rule that would tee up consideration of border security legislation, an ominous sign as Speaker Mike Johnson eyes weekend passage of foreign aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.

That panel comes back at 10 a.m. to try and tee up those foreign aid votes.

Conservatives are peeved — to put it mildly — at the plan. The three most prominent on the Rules panel — Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Ralph Norman (S.C.) — wouldn’t go along with a rule for the border package. That went down like a lead balloon among others in their conference.

“The three members who refuse to support the Speaker’s agenda should resign from the Rules Committee immediately,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “If they refuse, they should be removed immediately. They are there on behalf of the conference, not themselves.”

“Sorry, not sorry, for opposing a crappy rule that is a show vote / cover vote for funding Ukraine instead of border security,” Roy replied late Wednesday.

Johnson himself said threats of a motion to oust him from the speakership wouldn’t affect how he handled the foreign aid package. “My philosophy is you do the right thing and you let the chips fall where they may,” he told reporters late Wednesday. “If I operated out of fear of a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job.”

House Democrats gather at 9 a.m. to discuss the path forward on foreign aid. If they went along with the unusual step of supporting a GOP rule on the floor, Johnson would likely be able to overcome GOP defections.

On the docket today: A resolution condemning last weekend’s attack on Israel by Iran. First and last votes are slated for around 10:15 a.m.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, senators are due to take the first procedural vote on a reauthorization of a controversial surveillance tool, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a looming April 19 expiration deadline. That’ll happen around 1 p.m.

One day after Senate Democrats disposed of articles of impeachment against him, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appears before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at 10 a.m.

House lawmakers passed additional bills meant to counter Iran following last weekend’s attack on Israel.

Those measures:

The Standing Against Houthi Aggression Act, which would designate the Iran-backed Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. President Joe Biden reversed that designation, issued under the Trump administration, back in 2021.

The Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act, which would require congressional review of any action to terminate or waive sanctions against Iran.
Legislation led by Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) that would block the waiver allowing the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds as part of a prisoner swap.

The Iran Counterterrorism Act, which would require Iran to cease support for international terrorism in order for the administration to waive secondary sanctions.

There is no indication the Senate is prepared to act on any of them.

Senate Democrats quickly voted to adjourn the impeachment trial against Alejandro Mayorkas after deeming it unconstitutional — ending proceedings on Wednesday without any votes to convict or acquit.

The result was widely expected, but concludes months of House Republican efforts to target the Homeland Security secretary over the Biden administration’s border policies. In the Senate, floor time dedicated to the trial only totaled a few hours altogether; House impeachment managers delivered the articles on Tuesday afternoon.

Both parties believed the Mayorkas impeachment set a new precedent. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was determined to end any House practice to bog down the Senate with “frivolous” impeachment trials. But even centrist Republicans, who some Democrats believed might side with them to dismiss the trial, openly worried that Schumer had created a new norm for impeachments that are politically unfavorable for the majority.

“I think this was an embarrassment for the Senate today, and not in keeping with our constitutional role, regardless of how one may feel about the challenges and regardless of how one would choose to vote after listening to the evidence,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Democrats argued the dismissal shouldn’t become standard practice, but was an issue of legitimacy. By deeming the articles unconstitutional, in their view, the foundation for a trial was lost. Asked if that would hamper future impeachment trials, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) simply replied: “It shouldn’t hamper future credible impeachments.”

Votes on both articles mostly adhered to party lines, aside from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voting present on the first article, which alleged Mayorkas had engaged in “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” Senate Democrats had repeatedly cast the impeachment against Mayorkas as a sham, forecasting their ultimate decision to dispose of the trial on Wednesday.

Earlier in Wednesday’s proceedings, Schumer offered a deal to allow Senate Republicans some time to debate the articles and offer points of order, but Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) objected. Democratic leadership did still allow Republicans to make several motions on the floor, including delaying the trial, and each of which failed along party lines.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he believed Democrats allowed those motions so Republicans could “let off some steam,” but that the whole process still “created a bad precedent.”

Because Schmitt rejected the Democrats’ deal, none of the GOP motions included time for debate and it severely limited the GOP’s ability to elongate the trial or make any arguments.

“There’s no question that had there been a fulsome debate and discussion that you could have seen several of us vote in in favor of dismissal,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Republicans are already planning their retaliation, particularly against vulnerable Democratic senators that voted to cut proceedings short. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), running for reelection in his red state, tops their list.

But Tester shrugged off a question about how his vote could impact his race, calling it a “political impeachment.”

“There’s all sorts of shit that people can use,” Tester said. “The fact of the matter is, Biden should be doing a better job, America should be doing a better job, but so should Congress.”